Gladiator

May 15, 2000

So how many times do you think Joaquin Phoenix watched Caligula? 5 times? 10 times? 50 times? I would say 100 times, at the very least.

The whole sister/incest thing was pulled directly from Caligula, as was the pussy ass lisp that Commodus affected. (Connie Nielsen (Lucilla) risks being typecasted as an incestuous freak, what with a similar relationship in The Devils Advocate.) On top of that, he was trying to sex up his nephew, did they even have NAMBLA back then? Of course they did! It was called the Senate…

Anyway, I appreciated the nod to Caligula. Caligula is vastly underappreciated as a film. Gladiator could have used a bath house scene a la Spartacus though…

I liked this film. Mostly because I got out of work to see it – for free! I would have gone to see it anyway though. There was lots of killing, that’s always good. Not too much sex, that’s ok. I could have done without some of the gay ass Enya-type music, especially at the end. I liked the African Drum music though. I was disturbed by the lack of O Fortuna in the film. Yeah, I know that it’s overused, but it would have fit so well…snicker…

I really liked the bizarre dream sequences. Sean or Scott or somebody will tell me if it is the same silver process used in Stigmata and Three Kings. I think that they added to the film. Without them, it would have been just another Braveheart, 13th Warrior Bloodfest…Oh wait, it is anyway.

I don’t have to say go see it, because obviously everybody in the country has seen it several times already.